Dorothy Cooper shows her voter identification card to Jewel McSpadden,Tuesday morning at a voting station in Chattanooga, Tenn. Cooper made national news last year when she struggled to get identification due to a previous marital name change.

Across the nation, Americans are routinely required to show a photo ID when they travel by air; operate a motor vehicle; buy alcohol at a liquor store, restaurant, bar or sporting event; write a check at a grocery store; get a job; rent a car; apply for a passport; make a credit card purchase; apply for a loan; get a marriage license; adopt a pet; open an account or cash a check at a bank; get medical care; fill a drug prescription; pick up tickets at the will-call window of a baseball park or theater; rent an apartment; close on a house; or get a hotel room, to mention just a few.

Under a new law in Illinois, you must now show photo ID to buy a can of Drano at a retail store (drain cleaner had been used as a weapon in an attack that scarred two Chicago women). Yet Illinois law does not require the showing of a photo ID — or any ID — to vote in state or federal elections.

According to the bipartisan National Conference of State Legislatures, there are only 31 states that require voter ID at polling places, and only 15 of those require photo ID. This is absurd.

In December 2011, the U.S. Justice Department blocked a new law in South Carolina and is still withholding approval of a similar Texas law that would require photo ID for voting. Barack Obama’s hand-picked attorney general, Eric Holder, claims these kinds of laws would suppress black voter turnout.

Nonsense. In 2008, after Georgia’s photo ID law went into effect, voter turnout was up 6.1 percentage points from 2004, the fourth-largest increase of any state, including those without voter ID laws. The black share of the Georgia vote jumped to 30 percent in 2008 compared to 25 percent in the 2004 election.

How tough is it, really, to get a photo ID? There are 200 million licensed drivers in the U.S. with photo IDs. Non-drivers can secure general-purpose photo IDs at government offices. Obtaining one is much easier than a driver’s license; there’s no written exam or road test.

And why would anyone want to suffer the inconveniences of going without a photo ID? Only a racist or political spinmeister could claim that blacks lack the common sense to accomplish this simple task. And you can be sure that anywhere photo ID laws are passed, Democratic community organizers would be out in force getting their core voters qualified. Yes, illegal immigrants and other lawbreakers might have trouble getting a valid photo ID, but why should that bother you, unless you’re a Democrat who assumes most of those people would vote for your party?

Naysayers claim there’s no need for enhanced voter-ID because there’s only anecdotal evidence that voter fraud is a problem. Perhaps that’s because there’s never been a thorough government investigation. So, ignorance is bliss? And besides, on this matter, anecdotal evidence is quite enough. To paraphrase a common liberal plea, “even if it saves only one fraudulent vote, wouldn’t it be worth it?”

Voting is one of the most important citizen rights and duties in our constitutional republic. It’s our central democratic institution. It’s far more important than cashing a check or buying a beer.

There’s no valid reason not to protect the integrity of our voting process with an inexpensive, basic technology like a photo ID. And contrary to the hollow, contrived, self-serving objections of the deniers, there’s no reasonable downside.

A recent Rasmussen poll reports that 70 percent of Americans favor photo ID for voting. Others are rapidly joining those 15 states that already require it; Colorado should be among them.

Freelance columnist Mike Rosen’s radio show airs weekdays from 9 a.m. to noon on 850- KOA.